Support and/or guide roller devices of a similar type have been known in the prior art for a long time (see, for example, Gretsch-Unitas illustrated catalog 102a "Special Mountings for Folding Doors . . . ", pages 12 and 13). In these known support and/or guide roller devices, it is possible to adjust the height or level of each panel relative to the stationary frame, within certain limits, by a support and/or roller guide device in combination with a fixed panel, since the distance between the support pedestal and the running carriage of the support rollers supported on the stationary runner rail can be changed as needed.
An adaptation to variable distances of the panel front surface serving for attachment of the support pedestal to the front surface of the frame forming the attachment or alignment base for the stationary runner and guide rails has, however, not previously been possible.
When the known support and/or guide roller devices for windows and doors are utilized with panel cross-sections of various thicknesses, it is thus assumed that either runner and guide rails adapted to this are prepared with different profiles or, alternatively, that the runner and guide rails on the stationary frame and/or the support pedestals on the panel are adpated to the cross-sections of varying thickness by the use of special support plates.
In support and/or guide roller devices of this type according to German GM 6,939,860, the axle bolt rests on a bracket arm joined to a support pedestal mounted on the front side of the panel. The latter is thus limitedly displaceable on the support pedestal essentially crosswise to the panel plane and can be held fast in any position. Therefore, the bracket is shaped of flat stock according to a kind of U-shaped bow, which rests with the ends of the bow piece on a hinge bolt held by the support pedestal and must be locked in the region of the bow center-piece by a special support bracket in the adjusted tilted position each time.
This known support and/or guide roller device is not only expensive with respect to material and has a large space requirement, but also has the disadvantage that different support brackets must be used, as the case may be, for different tilted positions, if the desirable or necessary stability is to be assured.
German OS (Unexamined Patent Disclosure) 3,602,611 also has as its subject a mounting for folding sliding doors, which has support and/or guide roller divices for folding sliding panels. However, here a lever is arranged on each of the two adjacent panels by means of clamping devices and both levers are joined together to form a hinge by means of the bolts engaging the running carriage or supporting the guide roller.
The two levers or the hinge formed by them can be adjusted relative to the adjacent panels only in a direction parallel to the panel plane by means of clamping devices. This is done for the purpose of varying the lateral distance between the upright (vertical) edges of the adjacent panel corresponding to the purpose intended.
However, an adjustment of the hinges in the direction crosswise to the panel plane is only possible by providing slide bushings placed in both ends of the lever with eccentric boreholes and arranged in a rotatable manner.
CH Patent Disclosure 592,232 discloses a support and/or guide roller device, in which the running carriage bearing the support and/or guide rollers in the same way as in German OS (Unexamined Patent Disclosure) 3,602,611, at the same time holds a hinge by means of a vertical axle bolt, which hinge is arranged on two folding sliding panels adjacent to each other.
An ajustment means for adjusting the position of the hinge and/or the axle bolt relative to the adjacent folding sliding panels, however, is not present here. This and other difficulties experienced with the prior art have been obviated in a novel and unobvious manner by the present invention.
It is therefore an outstanding object of the invention to provide support and/or guide roller device of the type indicated above, which offers the possibility of adapting to different panel projection thicknesses, while retaining the adjustment capacity of the panel in the height direction and thus makes it necessary to utilize only one profile dimension for the stationary runner and guide rails for all installation cases encountered.
With this and other objects in view, as will be apparent to those skilled in the art, the invention resides in the combination of parts set forth in the specification and covered by the claims appended hereto.